thanks, adam. your math is correct and i'd like to reiterate what you allude to--how hard it is to sell 20,000 copies of a book. it's a sad but true irony of our culture: the more original the book, often the harder it is to sell.
i would not be able to get out of bed in the morning were it not for the incredibly wise and breathtakingly lucid The Elements of Cooking.
--anonymous
these are all awesome responses--fascinating. is salt more important than love?!
as i commented on blog.ruhlman.com, regarding the michael symon conflict of interest questions, I will give a brief answer here and a more complete response later, when the show begins to air. It wasn't as difficult as it might have been. If anything, with only one significant exception, it was more of a detriment to symon to have me on the panel.
@nick: Thanks for the clarification. Can't wait to see how the book turns out.
@ruhlman: Yeah. I didn't assert as aggressively the fact that even 20,000 copies would be a hard target to hit, since most of my back-up on that is anecdotal, from authors and from folks I know who deal with books and from links I can't seem to find. There was an item online from Publisher's Weekly where they talk about Bourdain's book being a hit for selling more than 250,000. That number really shocked me, because I seemed to see that book in everyone's hands after it came out. It seemed low, and then it's even more disheartening when you think that that's about 0.0008% of the U.S. population (roughly 303,000,000).
@paris221966: Seems like this might not be the thread for you.
I don't care about Gandhi or Marx either.
@paris221966: Mohandas Gandhi and Karl Marx were authors. And all they cared about was making money. You are so right.
Carney's House Party (it takes place in 1911) mentions a similar-sounding, delectable sort of party called a Bacon Bat.
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles05/party7.shtml
Matthew, what i especially like about the pig roast post is the paragraph that starts, "The next morning and usually with a hangover, they build a fire..." and "Rednecks, my culture, see pig roasts as a way to relieve wintertime blahs and, for some rednecks, an excuse to start drinking whiskey at daybreak."
love it!
Ruhlman, I'm sure the omission of an entry for "Red Ants" in Elements of Cooking is just an oversight, but just in case, Whitehead points out that they can be driven away by sprigs of wintergreen or ground ivy. I hear Raid also works.
^^^Wow, a tad judgmental aren't we? Please come back and add a comment when you climb down from your high horse.
Great interview, love Alton.
I'm appalled that a seemingly intelligent and artitculate man like Alton Brown would need to resort to the "F bomb" in expressing himself. And I'm amazed that anyone would find this vocabulary praiseworthy. If you like that kind of language, watch HBO.
Loved the interview! I love watching Good Eats!! My kids are 2,4, and 5 and they love it, too. There are so many "artsy" food shows on, what I love it the history, and science of good tasting food. Thank you Alton!!! I love the groundedness (if that is a word) that he brought to the Next Iron Chef. All I can say is if A.B. is in it, I'll watch it!!
Loved the interview, albeit small. It was nice to hear his take on Jeffrey. Sometimes while watching the banter between Jeffrey and the other judges I squirm at the obvious tension and what appears to be a desire to lean over and slap him across the face. It’s like a train wreck, I mean I want to change the channel …. But, then I might miss the cat fight if I do.
Lastly I love A.B & Good Eats, I’ve been a fan from the start, I even have the salt cellar to prove it….looking forward to many more years from your show.
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